New for Exchange 2016 only, is the option to download the updates as a single ISO file instead of a self-extracting package. Copying a single ISO over the network from one server to another is quicker and more efficient than copying the self-extracting package or the thousands of extracted files.

Updates of note this time around:

Updated OWA S/MIME Control certificate

New distribution package for Exchange 2016

Change to mailbox anchoring for remote PowerShell

17 new languages supported for OWA

Support for Standalone Hybrid Configuration Wizard in Exchange 2010

Microsoft is working on building in support for .Net 4.6.1 in the next quarter’s Cumulative Updates. So, avoid installing that version of .Net on ANY Exchange server for the time being.

For more info and download links for the updates, follow the links below:

​Recently had a customer with an Exchange 2013 Hybrid config require updating an expired SSL certificate. When they imported the new certificate and assigned it SMTP services, mail flow from on-premises to Office 365 stopped.

This was because the on-premises send connector to Office 365 was still configured to look for that expired certificate (which had also been deleted already).

The fix was to perform the following:

Open Exchange Management Shell on the on-premises Exchange server

Run Get-ExchangeCertificate, and note the Thumbprint of the correct certificate to be used.

Run $cert = Get-ExchangeCertificate -Thumbprint <thumbprint>

Set a new variable and assign it the concatenated values of the Issuer and Subject values of the certificate (must also include <I> and <S> before each field):$TLSCert = (‘<I>’+$cert.issuer+'<S>’+$cert.subject)

Unlike the previous version of the calculator for Exchange 2010 (which only focused on the Mailbox server role), the new requirements calculator includes sizing recommendations for both the Client Access role and the Mailbox role for Exchange 2013.

Microsoft continues to recommend deploying multi-role servers (installing CAS and Mailbox roles both on the same server).

The New Office 365 and Exchange 2013 have some significant improvements in the Outlook Web App (OWA) experience. One of the most significant changes is enhanced support for increasingly popular devices such as tablets and mobile phones.

With Exchange 2013, part of the New Office 365, OWA now senses if its being run in a tablet or mobile device web browser and automatically changes the UI layout to provide a better experience on that device. Microsoft announced this functionality in an Exchange Team Blog post last August.

However, you don’t have to be using either of those devices to see these two new UI formats. You can see them in your desktop browser by appending the following at the end of the OWA URL in the address bar of your browser:

This is particularly useful as the Safari for Windows browser only supports the OWA Light experience; but I’ve been able to get it to display the enhanced tablet layout in Windows with my Office 365 mailbox.

Below is the standard Desktop Layout:

Appending /?layout=twide in the URL in my address bar results in this format:

And if I use/?layout=tnarrowin the URL I get the mobile format:

Proof this works with Safari for Windows is below. Keep in mind, that the ability to render the Tablet or Mobile UI in Safari for Windows may be based on the patch level of the servers on which your mailbox resides. Microsoft is continually rolling out new features and patches to the Office 365 farm so this may be evidence of a new feature that’s coming in a future Cumulative Update (CU) that’s not fully rolled-out yet.

When you’re deploying Exchange 2010 Hub Transport servers, oftentimes you need to replicate the Receive Connectors on one server to multiple other servers. This isn’t such a dawnting task when you have just a few receive connectors or if the Remote IP Ranges isn’t a long list of IP addresses and/or subnets.

In those cases, manually creating them on each hub transport can be a nightmare.

You can use the following PowerShell commands to help speed up this process.

1. Get a list of all the non-default Receive connectors (i.e everything BUT the Default [SERVERNAME] and Client [SERVERNAME] connector)

The Exchange Management Console isn’t very intuitive when it comes to decommissioning servers in your environment. If you’ve opened the EMC and it last connected to a server that you then subsequently decommission, it will try to reconnect to that server the next time you open it, and fail.

Fortunately this issue seems to be limited to the user profile. To resolve this, close the EMC, then open the registry editor and navigate to HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftExchangeserverv14AdminToolsand remove theNodeStructureSettingskey.

Reopen EMC and it will search for another Exchange server to connect to.